The Blue Sword (4 page)

“Corlath,” breathed Beth, as if the name were a charm. “Daddy says that the Hillfolk have never liked us much—”

“We’ve always known that,” put in Cassie.

“—so he’ll probably slip in and out again and we’ll never even see him.”

“I’ve permission to invite you to lunch,” said Harry. “If he’s there at all, we’ll see him.”

“Oh, how wonderful!” said Beth. “Surely even he won’t have finished his business before lunch. Let’s not ride far; we should see something when he comes, and then we’ll know when to ride back. It’s very tiresome to have a real king come to visit and not even have an excuse to meet him.”

“Do you know anything of the Free Hillfolk?” said Harry. They rode at an angle away from the Residency, where they could keep an eye on it over their shoulders. “I don’t. No one will tell me anything.”

They both laughed. “The Hillfolk are the best-kept secret in Daria,” said Cassie. “I mean, we know they exist. Some of them come here—to the station, I mean—for the spring Fair.” Harry looked at her. “Oh, surely Lady Amelia has told you about our Fair,” Cassie said. “After three months of the rains we come out of hiding and work off our foul temper by holding a Fair—”

“—where we sell to each other all the ridiculous little bags and bonnets and dolls and footstools that we’ve made during the rains to keep from going mad because we couldn’t go out,” Beth continued.

“Yes, most of it is nonsense. But everyone is very gay for the first two or three weeks after the rain stops. The weather is cool enough—the only time all year you can go out even at midday; and there’re
green
things growing up from the ground, and everything you own is spread on the roofs and hanging from the windowsills, and they’re green too,” Cassie added with a grimace. “We decorate the streets and the square with paper flowers and real flowers, and banners and ribbons, and the whole town looks like it’s on holiday, with the dresses and blankets hanging out everywhere. We do have real flowers here—besides the eternal pimchie—although nothing like what you’re used to at Home, I daresay. Everything grows tremendously for two weeks, so for the third week, Fair week, everything is green and blossoming—even the desert, if you can believe it.”

“Then of course the sun kills everything again. That’s the fourth week. And you know what it’s like here the rest of the time.”

“Yes, but the Fair—everyone comes to the Fair. The Hillfolk too, a few of them, although never anyone very special. Certainly never the king. And it’s not all the bead purses that our sort has been making in despair. There are always some really lovely things, mostly that the Darians themselves have made. Even the servants aren’t expected to do as much, you know, during the rains. After the first few weeks you’re far too cross yourself to give many orders to anyone else.”

“But mostly the best things come up from the south. It’s only way up here that the weather’s so ridiculous, but the south knows about our Fair, and the merchants know that when we break out of winter prison we’re so mad with our freedom that we’re fit to buy
anything
, so they come up in force.”

“There are Fairs, or celebrations of spring of one kind or another, all around here, but ours is the biggest.”

“Well,” said Beth, “we’ve the biggest in things to buy and so forth; and we’re the only Homelander station up here. But there’re quite a number of Darian villages around here, and they take spring very seriously. Lots of singing and dancing, and that kind of thing. And they tell the most beautiful stories, if you can find someone to translate into Homelander. Which isn’t often.”

“We have singing and dancing too,” said Cassie.

“Yes, I know,” said Beth slowly; “but it’s not the same. Our dancing is just working it off, after being inside for so long. Theirs means something.”

Harry looked at her curiously. “You mean asking the gods for a good year—that kind of thing?”

“I suppose so,” said Beth. “I’m not quite sure.”

“No one will talk about anything really Darian to Homelanders,” said Cassie. “You must have noticed it.”

“Yes—but I’m new here.”

“You’re always new here if you’re a Homelander,” said Cassie. “It’s different in the south. But we’re on the Border here, and everyone is very aware that Freemen live in those Hills you see out your windows every day. The Darians that do work for you, or with you, are very anxious to prove how Homelander they really are, and loyal to all things Homelander, so they won’t talk; and the others won’t for the opposite reasons.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Daddy,” said Beth.

“We’ve heard him say it all often enough,” Cassie responded.

“But the Hillfolk,” said Harry.

“Yes. The one thing I suppose we all have in common is a joy in those three short weeks of spring. So a few Hillfolk come to our Fair.”

“They don’t act very happy, though,” said Beth. “They come in those long robes they always wear—over their faces too, so you can’t see if they’re smiling or frowning; and some of them with those funny patched sashes around their waists. But they do come, and they stay several days—they have the grandest horses you’ve ever seen. They pitch camp outside the station, and they always set guards, quite openly, as if we weren’t to be trusted—”

“Maybe we aren’t,” murmured Cassie.

“—but they never sell their horses. They bring the most gorgeous tapestries, though, and embroidered sashes—much nicer than the cut-up ones they wear themselves. These they sell. They stalk around the edge of the big central square, the old marketplace, carrying all this vivid stuff, while the rest of us are laughing and talking and running around. It’s a bit eerie.”

“No it’s not,” said Cassie. “You listen to the stories too much.”

Beth blushed. After a pause she said, “Do you see anything at the Residency?”

“No,” said Harry. “What stories?”

There was another pause while Cassie looked at Beth and Beth looked at her pony’s mane. “My fault,” said Cassie presently. “We’re not supposed to talk about them. Daddy gets really annoyed if he catches us. The stories are mostly about magic. Corlath and his people are supposed to be rotten with it, even in this day and age, and Corlath himself is supposed to be more than a little mad.”

“Magic?” said Harry, remembering what Dedham had said earlier. “Mad?” He hadn’t said anything about madness. “How?”

They both shrugged. “We’ve never managed to find out,” said Cassie.

“And we can usually wring what we want to know out of Daddy eventually,” said Beth, “so it must be something pretty dreadful.”

Cassie laughed. “You read too many novels, Beth. It’s just as likely that Daddy won’t talk about it because he refuses to admit it might be real—the magic, I mean. Jack Dedham believes it—he and Daddy argue about it sometimes, when they don’t think anyone else is around. The madness, if that’s what it is, is tied up somehow in the king’s strength—in return for having power beyond mortal men or some such, he has to pay a price of some kind of mad fits.”

“Who reads too many novels?” said Beth, and Cassie grinned. “It does rather catch the imagination,” she said, and Beth nodded.

“No wonder you’re so eager to set eyes on him,” said Harry.

“Yes. I know it’s silly of me, but I feel maybe it’ll show somehow. He’ll be eight feet tall and have a third eye in the middle of his forehead,” said Beth.

“Heavens,” said Harry.

“I hope not,” said Cassie.

“Well, you know how the legends go,” said Beth.

“No, not really,” said her sister repressively. “Even when Daddy is willing to translate some, you can tell by the pauses that he’s leaving a lot out.”

“Yes, but even so,” persisted Beth. “The old kings and queens were supposed to be taller than mortal—”

“The Darians are mostly shorter than we are, at least the ones we see,” interrupted Cassie. “A king could look quite ordinary to us and be very tall for them.”

“—and you can tell the royal blood by something about the eyes.”

There was another pause. Harry said, “Something?”

Again they both shrugged. “Something,” said Beth. “That’s one of the things Daddy always leaves out. Like the madness.”

“You’re hoping he’ll froth at the mouth,” said Cassie.

Beth threw a peevish look at her sister. “No. I’ll settle for the third eye.”

This conversation had taken them well away from the outlying houses of the station, and the dust kicked up by their ponies’ feet was giving up even the pretense of being anything other than desert sand. A silence fell; Cassie suggested a canter, which was duly accomplished. The sun was hot enough that when they pulled up again, after only a few minutes, the ponies’ shoulders were dark with sweat. Harry sent another of her long looks across the desert, and had to squint against the shivering light.

“Do you think we might turn back now?” Beth asked wistfully, shading her eyes with an elegantly white-gloved hand.

Harry grinned. “We can spend the rest of the morning in my sitting-room, if you like. It overlooks the front door, you know.”

Beth gave her a grateful look, Cassie chuckled; but they all three turned their ponies’ heads with dispatch and sent them jogging homeward as quickly as the heat would allow.

By the time they reached the suggestion of shade offered by the thin determined trees marking the outskirts of the station proper, Harry was hot and slightly headachy, and cross with herself for rushing back for no reason. Nothing could have escaped their notice; the Residency stood a little apart from the rest of the station, in its own grounds, and the road that ended at its front door had been under their eyes for the entire ride. They had been gone only a little over an hour. Harry considered suggesting that they meet again after another hour, time enough to change and have a bath; in her present condition she didn’t feel like meeting any kings, mad or otherwise.

But she stole a glance at Beth and saw how anxious she was not to miss anything; and she thought, Oh well, I can wash my face at least, and we can all have some cold lemonade, and watch the front door in comfort.

The horses walked slowly up the street to the Residency. Cassie pulled off her hat and fanned herself with it. Harry shut her eyes for a moment. An execrable habit, she told the insides of her eyelids. What if this fat sleepy fourposter with ears and a tail should bolt, or shy suddenly? What if the sky should fall? responded the insides of her eyelids.

The fourposter stopped dead in the road and raised its head a few inches just as Beth said in a strangled whisper: “Look.”

Harry and Cassie looked. They had come nearly to the end of the road; what was left was the broad circle in front of the Residency, suitable for turning carriages in, or forming up half a regiment. Off to one side, where the tall house cast a little shade, seven horses and one man stood. The horses stood in a little semicircle around the man, who sat cross-legged near the wall of the house. They stood quietly, stamping a foot now and then, and occasionally one would put out its nose to touch the man; and he would stroke its cheek a moment, and it would raise its head again. The first thing Harry noticed was the beauty of these animals; not a one was less than sixteen hands high, with long clean legs and tails that nearly touched the ground. Three were chestnuts, their coats shining even in the dusty shadow; one grey, one dark bay, one golden dun; but the finest horse stood farthest from three fat ponies standing foolishly in the carriage drive. He was a blood bay, red as fire, with black legs and tail; he stood aloof from the other horses and ignored the man at his feet. He stared back at the newcomers as if it were his land he stood on, and they intruders. As the other horses slowly swung their heads around to see what their leader was looking at, Harry noticed something else: they wore no bridles.

“He’s here,” said Cassie flatly.

Beth drew a deep breath. “How?” she said.

“Look at those
horses
,” said Harry, and the longing in her voice was so clear that even she heard it.

Cassie looked away from the impossible sight of seven horses that had made their way invisibly across a bleak desert right in front of three people who were looking for them, and smiled with sympathy at her friend. “Haven’t you ever seen a Hill horse before? They’re supposed to be the finest in Daria.”

“And they never sell them,” said Harry, remembering.

Cassie nodded, although Harry’s eyes never left the horses. “Jack Dedham would give an arm even to ride one once.”

“No bridles,” said Harry.

“No stirrups, either,” said Cassie, and Harry saw that this was true. They wore saddles that were little more than padded skins, cut and elegantly rolled; and she could see the gleam of embroidery on girths and pommels. Not a horse moved from its place in the semicircle, although all now, with the man, watched the three ponies and their riders.

“Horses,” said Beth disgustedly. “Don’t you understand what they mean? They mean that he’s here already, and we never noticed a thing. If that’s not magic, what is?” She prodded her pony forward again. Cassie and Harry followed slowly and stopped before the steps. Three stable boys appeared, ready to take the ponies back to the stable behind the house.

Harry’s feet had only just touched the ground—the boy hovering anxiously to one side, since he had learned through bitter experience that this Homelander did not wish to be assisted while dismounting—when there was a commotion at the entrance to the house. Harry turned around in time to see the heavy door thrown violently open, so that its hinges protested; and out strode a man dressed in loose white robes, with a scarlet sash around his waist. Several more figures darted out in his wake, and collected around him where he paused on the verandah. He was the axis of a nervous wheel, moving his head slowly to examine the lesser people who turned around him and squeaked at him without daring to come too near. With a shock Harry recognized four of these small mortals: Sir Charles and Mr. Peterson, Jack Dedham and her own brother, Richard. The man in white was tall, though no taller than Richard or Sir Charles. But there was a quivering in the air around him, like the heat haze over the desert, shed from his white sleeves, cast off by the shadows of his scarlet sash. These who stood near him looked small and pale and vague, while this man was so bright he hurt the eyes. More men came quietly out behind the Homelanders and stood a little to one side, but they kept their eyes on their king. He could be no one else. This must be Corlath.